Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1919 — The RIVER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The RIVER

By EDNAH AIKEN

When the Colorado Burst Its Banks and Flooded the Imperial Valley of California ? “ Copyright, Bobbs-Merrill Company <

CHAPTER XXlll—Continued. —ll— veil of fear was tom from her «yea. The trembling woman was gone. a vengeful wildest In her place. “Left me. Maldonado? . Left his home, where he traps the Indian with one coin In his pockets? No. senor. He brought her to our home, there; Lupe. the wife of Felipe, the Degulno. I told him not to fool with Felipe; the Indian was dangerous; he had hot blood. Maldonado struck me—he "kicked me —he said I was jealous — and hit me again. ' ‘ “Maldonado told me to get a big meal. I told him that It was for Felipe. When I said I would not cook for that treachery he cursed me, he kicked me again.” She threw off the reboso, dragging her dress loose. "Don’t,” frowned Rickard. He had seen a welt across her shoulder —a screaming line of pain. She wound the reboso aronnd the dishonored shoulder. “I cooked his dinner! There was a lot of liquor — Felipe was drunk; the tequila made him mad, quite mad. He seemed to know something was wrong: he sough t . as Maldonado dragged him to the cell, the senor remembers the cell? The next day Maldonado sent for two rurales. They started the next day for Ensenada, taking Felipe; that day Maldonado brought Lupe. home. I said she could not stay and he laughed in my face, senor. He put me outside the walls. I beat that " gate until my Ungers bled. I remembered the kind face of the senor, and then I came here. You will help me, senor?” Rickard shook his head. "I shall have to look Into this thing. If this is true it’s prison for your husband. You won’t have to fear Lup^.” II “When he gets out he will kill me, senor.” The terror was selling her again. Before she could begin her pleading be called to Mac Lean. "Ask Ling to find a tent for Senora Maldonado. Tell him to give her a good meal.” He most trap the rogue. That infernal place must be closed. The woman had come' in the nick of time. Those tribes were to be guarded as restless children. CHAPTER XXIV. Rickard Makes a New Enemy and a New Friend. The coming of the Indians gave the impetus the work had lacked. Under Jenks of the railroad company a large force was put on the river; these, the weavers of the. brush mattresses that were to line the river bed. On the hanks were the brush cutters; tons of willows were to be cut to weave into

the forty miles of woven wire cable waiting for the cross strands. Day by day the piles of willow branches grew higher, the brush cutters working ahead of the mattress workers in the stream. In the dense undergrowth the stolid Indians, Pi mas and Maricopas and Papagoes, struggled with the fierce thorn of the mesquit and the overpowering smell of the arrow weed. As tough as the hickory handles they wielded, they fought a clearing through dense thickets in the intense tropic heat. Down stream the Brobdingnagian arm of the dredge fell into the mud of the by-paas, dropping Its slimy burden on the far bank. Down the long stretch of levee the “skinners” drove their mules and scrapers; tHro pile drivers were setting in the treacherous stream the piles which were to anchor the steel-cabled mattresses to the river bed. It was a well-organized, active scene* Rickard, in his office, dictating letters and telegrams to MacLean, Jr., felt his first satisfaction. Thing* were beginning to show the result of months o< planning. Oars were making in from north and east; every

quarry between Los Angeles and' Tucson requisitioned for their undertaking. ' 1 A shadow fell on the pine desk. Ling, in blue ticking shirt and white butcher sapron, waited for the "boss” to look up. He stood wiping the perspiration from his head, hairless except for the long silk-tapered queue. "Wall. Line?” „ —1 -—-—4 “I go tamale.” His voice was soft as aUk. “I no stay.” It was a thunderclap. There was no one to replace Ling, who was drawing down she salary of a private secretary. Lose Ling? It wonld be more demoralizing to the camp than to lose an engineer. “Money all llte. Bossee all lite. No likee woman. Woman she stay, Ling go.” “Mrs. Hardin!” Rickard woke up. “She all time roakee trouble. She clazy. She think woman vellee fine cook. She show Ling cookee plunes. Teachee Ling cookee plunes! I no stay that woman.” Unutterable finality in the leathern face. Rickard and Mac Lean. Jr., exchanged glances which deepened from concern into perplexity. They could not afford to lose Ling. And offend Mrs. Hardin, the camp already Hnrdinesque? Rickard grew placating. He spent a half hour wheedling. They met at the starting place. “Ling go tamale.” “Oh. Lord,” groaned the manager, capitulating. “All right. Ling.” With the dignity of an prince, Ling pattered out of the tent, Rickard wai puckering his lips at his secretary. “I’d rather take castor oil.” A half hour later, Mac Lean saw his chief leave his tent. He was In fresh linens. “I wouldn’t swap places with him this minute! She’ll be as mad as a wet hen!” Mrs. Hardin, from her bed by her screen window, saw him coming. She slipped Into a seminegligee of alternate rows of lace and swiss constructed for such possible emergencies. She did not make the mistake of smoothing her hair; her instinct told her that the fluffy disorder bore out the use of the negligee. She was sewing In her ramada when Rickard’s knock sounded on the screen door. Despite his protests she started water boiling in her chafing dish. He hud not time for tea, he declared, but she Insisted on making this call of a social nature. She • opened a box of sugar wafers, her zeal that of a child with a toy kitchen; she was playing doll’s house. Rlcknrd made several openings for his errand, but her wits sped like a gopher from his labored digging. She met his mood with womanly dignity ; she tutored her coquetries, withheld her archness. He found he would have to discard diplomacy, blurt out his message; use bludgeons for this scampering agility. “My mission is a little awkward, Mrs. Hardin. I hope you will take it all right, that you will not be offended.” “Offended?” Her t face showed alarm. * ./‘lt's about Ling. He's a queer fellow; they all are. you know.” He was blundering like a schoolboy under the growing shadow in Gerty’s blue eyes. "They resent authority—that is, from women. He is a tyrant, Ling is.” ' “Yes?” Ah, she would not help him. Let him flounder! “He wants to be let alone; he doesn’t appreciate your kind help, Mrs. Hardin.” i _ “Oh!” Her eyes were hot with tears —angry tears. She could not speak or would not. She sat in her spoiled doll’s house, all her pleasure in her toy dishes, her pretty finery, ruined. He could not care if he could humiliate her so. It was the most vivid moment of her life. Not even when Rickard had left her, with his kisses still warm on her lips, had she felt so outraged. ’He was treating her as though she were a servant —discharging her —because she was the wife of Hardin. Her eyes grew black with anger; she hated them both; between them, their Jealousy, their rivalry, what had they made of her life? She remembered the woman she had seen in his ramada; she had heard that the Mexican was in camp, employed by Rickard. Her thoughts were like swarming hornets. “He’s an ungrateful beast, Mrs. Hardin. I told him I would not let you waste your kindness one instant longer—” Gh, she understood! A bitter pleas-ure*-to See him so confused. Rickard, before whose superior appraisement she had so often wilted! She would not help him out, never! She rose when he paused. He thanked her for meeting him half way, and her smile yvas inscrutable. "So I’m discharged?” “You cah’t be discharged if you’ve never been employed, can you? Thank you once, again, and for your tea. It was delicious. I wish Ling would give us tea like that.” Boorish, 411 of it, and blundering! Why wouldn’t he go? When he had hurt her so! had hurt her sol .*’ • ■ -f c" ■ •*' -

Her hand met his, hut not her eyes. If he did not go quickly something would happen; he jwould see her crying. The angels that guard blunderers got Rickard out of the tent without a suspicion of threatening tears. She threw off her negligee and the pale blue slip; the tears must wait for that. Then she flung herself on her bed and shook it with the grief of wounded vanity. That evening the chief had a visitor. The wife of Maldonado, some of the fear pressed out of her eyes, brought In his laundered khakis, socks, darned and matched; all the missing buttons replaced. “I haven’t worn a matched sock,” he told her, “for months. That’s great, senora.” He wanted to get to bed, but she lingered. She Wanted to talk to him about her troubles; he had cautioned her against talking about them in camp, so she overflowed to him whenever she found a chance —about Maldonado, the children, Lupe. It was getting wearying, but he could not shove the poor thing out. % . Senora Maldonado gave a sharp intake of breath, an aborted scream. Rickard, too, saw a man’s figure outside the screen door. The Mexican woman pressed a frightened hand to her heart. Of course it was the vengeful Maldonado —he would kill her—“lf I am intruding,” It was the voice of Hardin. “Come right in,” welcomed Rickard. “Get along, senora.” The Maidoaado slipped out into the night,'*her hand still against her heart. Hardin, a roll of maps under his arm, entered with a rough sneer on his face. A dramatic scene, that, he had interrupted! And Rickard, who did not like to have women in camp. White women! Rickard, still sleepy, asked him to sit down. “I wanted to speak to you about those concrete aprons. They tell me you’ve given an order not to have them.” Rickard resigned himself to a long argument. It was three o’clock when Hardin let him turn in. When he was getting ready for bed he remembered the melodramatic scene Hardin had entered upon. He’ stared comprehendingly at the screen door —seeing with understanding Hardin’s coarse sneer—the Maldonado, breathing fast, her hand over her heart. “Of course he’ll think —good lord, these people will make me into an old woman! I don’t care what the whole caboodle of them think!” Five minutes after blowing out his candle he was deeply sleeping.

CHAPTER XXV. Smudge. From her tent, where she was writing a letter that lagged somehow, Innes Hardin had seen Rickard go to her sister’s tent. She did not need to analyze the sickness of sight that watched the dancing step acknowledge its intention. It meant wretchedness. for Tom. At a time when he mbst needed gentleness and sympathy rasped as he was by his humiliations and disappointments—how could any woman be so cruel? As for Rickard, he was beneath contempt—if it true, Gerty’s story, told In shrugs and dashes. She had jilted him for Tom; and this his revenue? She had' not known that she had such feeling as the thought roused in her. It proved what the Blood tie is, this tigerish passion sweeping through her, as her' eyes watched that closed tent —it was for love for Tom, pity for Tom. Sex honor —why, Gerty did not know the meaning of the words! How long would it be before Tom would see what every one else was seeing? What would he do when he knew? Hating Rickard already, bitter as he was— She was not so biased as he. She could see why Marshall had had to reorganize. Estrada had shown her; and Mac Lean. Her sense of justice had done the rest. Rickard had proved his efficiency; the levee, the camp, the military discipline all showed the general. Whether he were anything of an engineer, time would tell that. It was a long call he was making ! Suppose Tom were to come back? She must watch for him —make some excuse to pull him in if he should come back before that other went— Hateful, sufch eavesdropping! A prisoner to that man’s gallivanting! For an instant she did not recognize the figure outside Gerty’s tent. Her fears saw Tom. She reached the screen door in time to See Rickard lift his hat to a disappearing flurry of ruffles. Angry eyes watched Rickard’s step swing him away. 6 From the levee that day, she had a glimpse of the Mexican woman on her knees by the river, rubbing clothes against a smooth stone. A pile of tight-wrung socks lay on the bank. Innes stood and watched her. “I must remember to speak of Irer to Gerty,” : she determined. “She probably does not know that there Is a washerwoman in camp.” It was a week later before she remembered to speak of the Mexican

y-ojnnn “who could wash.” The two women were on their way to their tents from the mess breakfast. Senora Maldonado was leaving Mac Lean’s tent with ■ a large bundle of used clothes under her arm. “.She washes for the men. I’m going to ask her to do my khakis for me. Perhaps this woman would be willing to do all our laundry?” Gerty had been wondering what she would say to Innes. The speech which

needed only an introduction was stirred Into the open. “You must not,” her voice trembled with anger, “you must‘not ask that woman. She is not to be spoken to.” The girl pked her bluntly what she meant. “You must not give her your washing—must not speak to her. I’ve not mentioned it before. I —l hoped it would not be necessary. Tom told me not to speak of it.” “Tom told you not to speak of It? Not to speak of what?” “You must have observed—Mr. Rickard?” The girl’s, ear did not catch the short pause. “Observed Mr. Rickard?” “The coolness between us. I scarcely speak to him. I don’t wish to speak to him.” When had all this happened, Innetf demanded of herself? Had she been asleep, throwing pity from outdated dreams? “I won’t countenance a common affair like that.” Her eyes, sparkling with anger, suggested jealous wrath to Innes, who had her first hint of the story. She had learned never to take the face value of her sister’s verbal eoin; it was only a symbol of value; it stood for Something else. The yellow eyes were on the dredge bucket as it swung across the channel, but they did not register. She was angry, outraged; she did not know with whom. With Gerty for telling her, with Rickard, with life that lets such things be. She jumped up. “Oh, stop it!" She rushed out of the tent, followed by a strange bitter smile that brought age to the face of Gerty Hardin. •' In her own tent, Innes found excuse for her lack of self-control. She did not like the color of scandal; she hated smudge. Gerty had said the whole camp knew it; knew w 7 hy the Mexican woman was in camp! She did not trust Gerty in anything else; why should she trust her in that? She would forget Gerty’s gossip. But she remembered it vividly that week as she washed her own khakis; as she bent over the ironing board in Gerty’s sweltering “kitchenette." She thought of it as she returned Rickard’s bow in the mess tent the next morning; each time they met she thought of it. And it was in her mind when she met Senora Maldonado by the river one day, and made a sudden wide curve to avoid having to speak to her.

CHAPTER XXVI. Time the Umpire. The river was low; its yellow waters bore the look of oriental duplicity. Each day was now showing its progress. The two ends of the trestle were creeping across the stream from their brush aprons. A few weeks of work, at the present rate, and the gap would be closed, Hardin’s big gate in it; the by-pass ready; the trap set for the Colorado. The tensity of a last spurt was in the air. It inspiring activity, this pitting of man’s cumulative skill against an elemental force. No Caucasian mind which did not tingle, feel the privileged thrill of it. To the stoli'd native this day of well-paid toil was his millennium, the fulfillment of the prophecy. His gods had so spoken. Food for his stomach, liquor for his stupefaction; the white man’s money laid in a brown hand each Sunday morning was what the great gods fore-

spoke. The completion of the work, the white man’s victory, would be ,an end of the fat time. Hasten? Why should they, and shorten their day of opportunity? Between the two camps oscillated Coronel, silently squatting near the whites, jabbering his primitive Esperanto to the tribes. His friendship with the white chiefs, his age and natural leadership gave him'a unique position in both camps. Assiduously, Rickard cultivated the old Indian who crouched days through by the bank of the river. x The engineers felt the whip of excitement. Never a man left the camp in the morning who did not look toward that span crawling across the treacherous stream, measure that widened by-pass. Would the gate stand? The Hardin men halloed* for the gate, but looked each morning to see if it were still there. The Reclamation Service men and the engineers of the ra|lroad were openly skeptical; Sisyphhs outdone at his own game! Estrada and Rickard looked furtively at the gate, with doubt at each other. Hardin, himself, was repressed, an eager live wire. His days he spent on the river; his nights, long hours of them, open-eyed, on his back, watching the slow-wheeling, star-pricked dome of desert sky. His was the suspense of the man on trial; this was his trial; Gerty, Rickard, the vhlley, his judge and jury. The gate grew to be a symbol with him of restored honor, an obsession of desire. It must be all right! Rickard was all over the place. “Watching every piece of rock that’s dumped in the river,” complained Wooster. “Believe he marks them at night!” They were preparing for the final rush. In a week or two, the work wouid be continuous, night shifts to begin when the rock-pouring commenced. Large lamps were being suspended across the channel, acetylene, whose candelpower was that of an arc light. Soon there would be no night at the break. When the time for toe quick coup would come, the dam must be closed without break or slip. One mat was down, dropped on the floor that had already swallowed two such gigantic mouthfuls; covered with rock; pinned down to the slippery bottom with piles. Another mat was ready to drop; rock was waiting ,to be poured over it; the deepest place in the channel was reduced from fifteen to seven feet. Each day the overpour, anxiously measured, increased. A third steam shovel had been added; the railroad sent in several work trains fully equipped for service; attracted by the excitement, the hoboes were commencing to come in. -■— — : —~ ? ——

~ It was a battle of big numbers, a duel of great force where time was the umpire. Any minute hot weather might fall on those snowy peaks up yonder, and the released waters, rushing down, would tear out the defenses as a wave breaks over a child’s fort made of sand. This was a race, and all knew it. A regular train dispatch system was in force that the inrushing cars might drop tljeir burden of rock and gravel and be off after more. The Dragon was being fed rude meals, its appetite whetted by the glut of pouring rock. Tod Marshall came down from Tucson in his car. The coming of the Palmyra and Claudia rippled the social waters .at the front for days ahead. Gerty Hardin, too proud to tell her astonished family that she wanted to desert the mess tent, shook herself from her injury, and “did up” all her lingerie gowns. Mrs. Marshall w T as not going to patronize her, even if her husband had snubbed'Tom. It was hot, ironing in her tent, the doors closed. Everything carried a sting those Indoor hours. She was aflame with hot vanity. Twice, she had openly encouraged Rickard ; twice, he had flouted her. That was his kind! Men who prefer Mexicans —! She would never forgive him, never! She followed devious channels to involve Tom’s responsibility. There was a cabal against the wife of Hardin. Working like a servant! she called it necessity. Everything, every one punished her for that one act of folly. Life had caught her. She saw no way, as she ironed her mull ruffles, no way out of her cage. Her spirit beat wild wings against her bars. If she could see a way out! Nothing* to do but to stay with Tom! Maddening, too, that at the mess table, she caught Rickard’s eyes turning toward, resting on, Innes Hardin. The girl .herself did not teem to notice — artful, subterranean, such stalking! That was why she had come running back to the Heading! That the reason of her anger when she had hinted of the Maldonado. She learned to hate Innes. Bitterly she hated Rickard. “Tom,” she said one day. He turned with a swift thrill of expectation, for her voice sounded kind; like the Gerty of old. “I have always heard that Mr. Marshall has terribly strict ideas. I think he ought to hear of that Mexican woman. It is demoralizing in a camp like this.” “I tell Marshall anything against his pet clerk?” The IJardin lip shot out. “He’d throw me out of the company.” The pretty scene was spoiled. To his dismay, she burst into a storm of tears, tears of self-pity. Her life lay in tatters at hgr feet, the pretty fabric rent, torn between the rude handling of those two men. She could not have reasoned out her Injury, made It convincing, built out of dgeams as it was, heartless, scheming dreams. Because she could not tell it, her sobbing was the more violent, her complaints incoherent. Tom gathered enough fragments to /piece the old story. “Ashamed at him. He had dragged

her down Into his huml’l.* uon.” Bis sweet moment had passed. He spent a few futile moments trying to comfort her. | , “Don’t come near me.” It burst from her; a cry of revulsion. He stared at her, the woman meetinfe his eyes in flushed defiance. The hatred which he saw, her bitterness/corroded his pride, scorched his self-lbve. Nothing would kill his love for her; be knew that in that blackest of moments. He would never forget that look of dread, of hate. He left her tent. That night, the cot under the stars had no tenant. - Hardin had it out with himself down the levee. That valley might fulfill Estrada's vision and his labor; might yield the harvest of happy homes; but his was not there. He had been the sacrifice.

CHAPTER XXVII. The Walk Home. Claudia Marshall sat at the head of her, stately table in the Palmyra, mute as a statue but for the burning eyes which followed her T*od. To Innes. her guest, it was a tragic presence, of brooding solicitude. Late hours, excitement, might abridge the life she so passionately policed; but she would not demand the sacrifice of his cigar,. i"-’ Marshall’s cigar followed the coffee. Tony, the white-capped Italian cook at the Palmyra, was removing the cups. Innes was carrying her double interest, listening to Tod Marshall’s broad sweep, getting a new viewpoint as ho minimized the local scheme —feeling that silent presence at the head of the table. . ■ - Then something drove Claudia from her mind. What Mr. Marshall had said swept a disturbing calcium on Tom. What if, truly, the river fiasco could be traced to that overzealous hand? To Tom, this undertaking blotted out thq* rest of related big endeavor; but that was not the way her host was looking at it. He was too courteoui to give her discomfort; he hadnot said it directly. But always it met her, rose up to smite her, wherever she was. Was it not egotism, personal pride, that was making her cover her eyes, like any simple ostrich? Her brother—assume him anybody else’s brother! The dredge fiasco —the wild night at the levee —no isolated accidents those. Hardin’s luck! A flush of miserable shame came to her. How they had all been trying to spare her —Eduardo, these kindly Marshalls —Mac Lean! She was turning, impulsively, to ask Tod Marshall if he thought, could he think it probable that they would fail, when a step that sent the Wood to her face took the car’s stairs at two leaps. Now, indeed, the dinner was spoiled. ‘That’s Rickard. I forgot to tell you that I asked him to dinner. He couldn’t get away. He said he’d run in for coffee. Hello, Rickard. Thought you’d forgotten us!” She hadn’t thought of that contingency! She found herself shaking hands with him. Could he not hear he_* mind, ticking away at the Maldonado episode? Of course he would insist on seeing her to her tent. Punctilious, always. Well, she just wouldn’t. Perhaps she could slip out some way. She would watch her chance. “Can I talk shop for a while?” asked Rickard. They withdrew to a cushioned window seat. Innes had found her chance. She asked to be shown over the car. Innes confided her plan. She wanted

so slip ont. “She would not Interrupt their evening; Mr. Marshall had business to discuss —” Mrs. Marshall woqld not hear of It. She said that Mr. Marshall would never forgive her if she let Miss Hardin go home alone. Her opposition was softly Implacable. Innes went back to the sitting room of the car angrily coerced. Rickard was still closeted, conversationally, with his superior. At last, desperately, she rose to go. Of course, he must insist upon going With her. Of course! ‘ , “I was going back early, anyway. I’m to be up at dawn tomorrow.” The good-bys were said. She found herself walking rebelliously by his side. “No, thank you!” to the offer of his arm. 51 (TO BE CONTINUED.) According to the statistician of • New York trust company, there are 18,125 millionaires in the United States

"You Will Help Me, Senor?"

Angry Eyes Watched Rickard.

“Thought You'd Forgotten Us."